This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein: Review

Elizabeth Wein’s exceptional — downright sizzling — abilities as a writer of historical adventure fiction are spectacularly evident in this taut, captivating story of two young women, spy and pilot, during World War II. Indeed, this is one of those books I want to thrust into the hands of every young adult — or adult! — reader: a story so artful, sound and exceptionally well-written that it would be tragic to miss out on it.

Captured during a mission in Nazi-occupied France, Queenie, aka Lady Julia Lindsay MacKenzie Wallace Beaufort-Stuart, bargains with the SS-Hauptsturmführer. In order to stave off her inevitable execution, she’ll have two weeks to write all she knows of the British War Effort. And as an agent of Britain’s Special Operations Executive — i.e. an interrogator or so-called “wireless operator” — Queenie is a font of information. “I am a coward,” she begins, “I wanted to be heroic and pretended I was. . . ” But Queenie’s revelation of wireless codes, aerodrome locations, and airplane identifications puts this upper crust Scot firmly in the category of squealer.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Still, Queenie’s narrative is much more than wireless codes and aerodromes: it’s the story of her friendship with Maddie Brodatt, a pilot for Britain’s Air Transport Auxiliary and the person who dropped Queenie in France, then went on to crash the disabled plane. “It’s like being in love, discovering your best friend,” Queenie writes, telling of Maddie’s increasing competence as a pilot and of the adventures the two of them shared before the disastrous, failed mission and fateful plane crash.

And it’s more than that too, as the Hauptsturmführer realizes. “The English flight officer has studied the craft of the novel,” he notes of Queenie’s account. “She is making use of suspense and foreshadowing.” Little does he know: Queenie is making use of much more than that, as the reader realizes eventually. Between the lines of her portrait of Maddie, she alternately cheeks, charms, deceives and is devastated by her captors, a kind of cross between Mata Hari and Arthur Ransome’s Nancy Blackett — but more devious than either.

“Gloriously daft, drop-dead charming, full of bookish nonsense and foul language, brave and generous,” one character comments of Queenie — and all those qualities come forth in full force in her lively, mesmerizing and heart-stopping narrative and its aftermath.

Wein’s story ducks and dodges ingeniously, giving us multiple double-takes and surprises, ratcheting up tension and emotional power as the story moves towards its conclusion. It is superbly plotted, and rereading it only confirms the abundance of Wein’s art as a subtle weaver of fiction. For its loving descriptions of flight, of earth seen from the air (derived in part from Wein’s own experience as a pilot of small planes); for its potent, unsentimental evocation of female friendship, engagement of historical material, and intelligent, piquant writing, it is prize-worthy.

And a terrific read, to boot.

Also by Elizabeth Wein, for younger readers:

The Sunbird

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Viking, 184 pages, various prices,

Ages 10 and up

In 541 B.C.E., 10-year-old Telemakos discovers someone is letting traders break the quarantine that keeps the plague from Aksum (Ethiopia). Then he’s sent on a perilous journey to the salt flats to spy out the traitor. A powerful, multi-layered read. Highly recommended.

The Mark of Solomon: Book I The Lion Hunter

Viking, 223 pages, various prices, ages 10 and up

Telemakos is tutored at a neighbouring court — where, by eavesdropping, he learns something that endangers his life. Intrigue, suspense, and a vivid, exotic setting — along with superb characterization and plotting. Highly recommended.

The Mark of Solomon: Book II The Empty Kingdom

Viking, 221 pages, various prices, ages 10 and up

Caught eavesdropping, Telemakos now must wear a noisy bracelet — but even so he passes secret information on to his own Emperor. With moves and countermoves, information hidden and revealed, Wein brings us to triumphant final revelations of identity, loyalty and power. Highly recommended.

More from The Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com